Jack Marshall, president of Charlottesville, Va.-based Advocates for a Sustainable Albermarle Population (ASAP) / Courtesy photo

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Free Press Staff Writer

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Some population experts look abroad for instructive lessons on growth. Jack Marshall, a resident of Virginia’s Albemarle County, retired after working for decades in international family planning.

These days he finds plenty of challenge at home. As president of the Advocates for a Sustainable Albemarle Population (ASAP), Marshall works overtime to include growth constraints in the re-write of the county’s Comprehensive Plan.

Chittenden County residents could do worse than listen in. The two regions bear a resemblance: Both have dominant cities (Albemarle’s is Charlottesville), anchored by a major university and a hospital; both are blessed with generous amounts of countryside.

In size, too, the two are in the same ballpark. Although Chittenden County has a slightly larger population (about 156,000 versus 100,000), its area is smaller (620 square miles to Albemarle’s 750).

Burlington Free Press: I have to say — I’ve been to Albemarle County. I like it.

Jack Marshall: Unfortunately, too many folks do.

BFP: What kind of impression do you think ASAP is making on the county commissioners?

JM: I think we’ve raised consciousness. Elements of the community have wrung their hands for three or four decades, complaining about growth. ASAP was created a decade ago, and it’s helped to bring such folks together and to provide some more specific proposals for solving the problems that we all piss and moan about.

The fact is, there are a lot of things we can do about it.

BFP: Where do you start?

JM: With the three big myths: that growth is good, that growth is inevitable, and that a community that isn’t growing is dying. And we focus quite explicitly on debunking those myths.

BFP: Sounds like quite a chore.

JM: The “growth is inevitable” part has been one of the hardest, in fact. But we simply point out that zoning is a mechanism for limiting growth. We’re not, as our opponents allege, proposing digging a moat or building a big fence.

BFP: How do you address concerns by the larger business community, which for decades has promoted fast growth as a good thing?

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JM: Over the past 30 years, there are more and more studies looking at the fiscal costs of growth. ASAP has just finished a major one. It simply confirms what other studies have shown all over the country: that growth does not pay for itself; that the costs of providing infrastructure exceed the revenues of new businesses.

BFP: How was it received?

JM: Well, there was a study of “target industries” contracted by the county, the city and some other contiguous counties. They hired a hot-shot consulting outfit to identify the kinds of industries and commercial enterprises we need here. They came up with a priority list — and predicted they will bring in vast amounts of revenues for the community.

BFP: You don’t buy it?

JM: Our study shows that’s (not likely). The formula, the equation they use to calculate the fiscal benefits to local government simply ignore the fact that when these outfits come in, they don’t hire our un- and underemployed, because the skill-sets aren’t the same. They bring in their own workers, who bring in their own families and kids – who want to go to school.

Thus, the costs of these new businesses should include the costs of the labor force imports. And that changes the whole equation.

BFP: For the worse, I take it.

JM: Moreover, these arguments by your businesses folks and ours only take into account issues that can be monetized.

If you can’t monetize the decline in ecosystem services that occur when fields and forests are bulldozed, then you can’t build those numbers, those dollar amounts into your formula — so they’re external, and you just ignore them.

JM: Exactly. And so I think the understanding of the fiscal cost of growth will increase. But at the moment, your businessmen and ours say, “You can’t measure that, so it’s not important.”

BFP: You hope to make better sense to the business community and to local government?

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JM: We’re trying, but it ain’t easy, as you know.

BFP: What kind of numbers are you coming up with?

JM: We have an upcoming study that addresses how much the county has to fork out in services in order to collect a dollar of revenue.

It turns out, not surprisingly, that there are three classes of development that do pay for themselves. For every dollar in tax revenue paid by agriculture, the county only pays out 20 cents.

For commercial, it’s 51 cents; for industrial, it’s 44 cents. That’s how much they cost the government to provide services such as cops, fire, roads and so forth. But those numbers don’t factor in the additional bodies that are imported.

BFP: So: maybe we need more robots?

JM: Or, what we’re arguing: Focus on local businesses. Strengthen them, even if they grow and want to import folks, but the emphasis should not be on bringing in you New Englanders (laughs); it should be in helping our own homegrown mom-and-pop stores — which gives the place its character.

Which is, of course, another non-monetized variable: the quality of life. We talk a lot about that. But how do you put dollar signs on traffic congestion or school redistricting?

BFP: Charlottesville is a pretty forward-looking place. Are you getting any help?

JM: Most mainstream environmental groups, including colleagues here with whom we work closely, are “smart-growth-ers” (those who favor directing development into areas of greater density). ASAP’s argument is that smart-growth is necessary, but not sufficient. So we support them and urge that they help us out.

BFP: Do they?

JM: In fact, they like us, many of them, because we’re the “crazies.” To their more conservative members, some of what they’re proposing for smart-growth is “fringe.” And now, they can look at us and say, “No no no — we’re mainstream. Look at ASAP: They’re the nuts.”